eagle

For anyone researching this angle, check out tyramines. I just learned about them from ThatHurtsMyHead in other thread ("why do I have food triggered CH when in cycle?"). They're very similar to histamines and his low-tyramine food list was almost identical to my low-histamine list. At the very least it's another search term to use when doing researching to try and unravel all this stuff.

Sadly, I'm back in a cycle (despite staying on the low-histamine diet). Not sure what's different. Very frustrating to be back in it after finding success for a couple years.

Sorry to hear the trial is over, razorPP, but glad you pulled some positives out of it. Now it sounds like gloating but I'd really logged on to share that I just passed through my 4th cycle (mine our predictably fall and spring) without tipping over the edge into a full-blown CH by following a low-histamine diet during the cluster. I even got rid of my oxygen tank today. I'm very curious to hear if other folks have tried this.

There are two weird precursors that I always get, beside the "shadows"/mild CHs. I haven't ever seen anyone else mention them and I've been curious if others have experienced this. The first is that I get irritable and mildly depressed (before the cycle starts and I have to deal with pain and bad sleep). The second is that I start to very slightly swallow my words. I've asked other people and they've never noticed but my wife says that she can tell. As for dealing with them, I'll point people to my low-histamine diet post (sorry I don't know how to actually link to it). It's absolutely worked for me.

To Swiftlaw's question, I think that the low-histamine regime could work mid-cluster. For my spring cluster I waited until I started getting shadows and other symptoms. It seemed like it took a few days for it to kick in but it seemed to work. I'd be curious to hear if other had success mid-cluster. And, yes, it is a pretty limited diet in a lot of ways. There's a big celebration in my house when I start easing out of it. Great post from CHfather and repost of Batch on antihistamine. I tried to keep track of pollen counts this spring and it did seem like some of the tree pollens were really high at the same time that I started to feel like I might tip over the CH edge despite my low-histamine diet. I did take Benedryl a few of those days and seemed to help. I was hesitant to stay on it because I had read something (not verified) that antihistamines could interfere with the body's natural DAO enyzmes (which are responsible for breaking down histamines). That made me nervous but I also wanted to try to not change too many things at once as I experimented with the diet.

Glad to do it. I'm sure this won't work for everyone but hopefully it might help some of you out. It's been such a great thing for me (and my family), even if it is an annoying diet for me to deal with 4 or 5 months out of the year. Here are some of the sites I've used. The frustrating thing is that it's a new area and there isn't a definitive list of foods out there so you have to piece things together and experiment. For example, eggs are OK on some lists and not on others. I kept them in my diet and it seemed to work for me. - http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11175/everything-you-need-to-know-about-histamine-intolerance.html - http://chriskresser.com/headaches-hives-and-heartburn-could-histamine-be-the-cause/ - http://thelowhistaminechef.com/(a reporter who has done a ton of research, a lot of it focused on MAST cell issues that are a little different) - http://www.histaminintoleranz.ch/en/introduction.html(a good food list in their downloads section) There's a book called "Is Food Making You Sick" by James GIbb that I just came across. I haven't read it though.

I just passed through my third cluster without a headache by going on a low histamine diet during my regular cycle! Absolutely amazing. I’ve had regular spring/fall clusters for the past 14 years (with occasional smaller clusters in between). About 1 ½ years ago a naturopath suggested that I try a low histamine diet. I went on it about a month before I usually enter my spring cluster and stayed on it for the duration. Not one headache. I could definitely sense that things were going on and I had a few shadows but it never tipped over the edge. After that I went back to a normal diet until my normal fall cluster. Then I did the same thing with the same results. This spring I didn’t start the diet until I felt that I was about to enter a cluster and that worked OK. I was a little less strict this spring and did have to bust out the O2 once but I probably would have been OK without it. My level of understanding of the physiology of it isn’t that great but this is how I think about it. Our body makes histamines in response to allergens (and for other reasons). Foods contain them as well. If we avoid foods that contain lots of it we can lower our overall histamine levels. Then, when we’re in a cluster and our hypothalamus misfires and causes histamines to kick out and dilate our blood vessels and cause us horrendous pain, there’s simply not enough histamines to do the normal damage. I’m sure those of you more knowledgeable will tear that up. The overall histamine level is also why the traditional food-journal never helped me. There’s not one trigger. The orange you ate before you got a headache wasn’t necessarily the cause. The ham and Swiss you ate earlier was just as guilty. The food list is pretty long, and there are lots of variations of it out there. It’s a really annoying diet but totally worth it. Interestingly, I went to see the naturopath only after I had inadvertently put myself on a high-histamine diet. Typically my spring/fall clusters last 1-2 months but I was in one that had been going on for 4+ months and was worse than any I’d ever had. With my tools (O2, verapamil and imitrex) no longer being enough and me having a hard time getting an appointment with my neurologist I went to see a naturopath who I knew (who wasn’t familiar with cluster headaches but did some research and came up with an amazing shot in the dark). My inadvertent high-histamine diet was an anti-inflamatory, low-pH diet that I was trying. It turns out that my daily apple-cider vinegar tonics and pineapple/spinach smoothies were just about the worst things I could have done.